


devise reason later

by elumish



Series: No Other Good [2]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ardeur, Gen, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 00:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11680401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: “Nathaniel,” the man in the bed says, and he sounds somewhere between bewildered and alarmed, “can you smell that? When she—when she stopped the ardeur, she smelled like Jean-Claude. And now, again.”Nathaniel frowns at him. “Anita?”The man in the bed shakes his head. “Not Anita. Her.”





	devise reason later

“Legilimency,” Hermione says, drawing herself up to her full height to face Anita, “when used offensively is a magical felony, and I suspect the British Ministry of Magic wouldn’t be too happy to hear that you used it against me.” Especially given who she is. She dislikes the idea of using her name for something like this, but if that woman was willing to use it against her, who knows who else she’s been using it against.

But Anita just blinks, the confusing shifting to something close to fear. Ignoring Hermione, she looks at the stripper, saying, “Legilimency? That’s not—Nathaniel?”

He sweeps past Hermione to go to Anita, wrapping her in his arms. Hermione is pretty sure the disapproval is showing on her face, but she can’t help it.

“You didn’t hurt her,” Nathaniel says.

Scowling at both of them, Hermione snaps, “Shouldn’t that be for me to say, considering it was _my_ head you just attempted to force your way into?”

“Okay,” a voice says behind her, and she steps out from between the man on the bed and Nathaniel and Anita, shoving her left hand in her pocket to try to hide her full body twitch. This is why she went on vacation, so she could try to calm herself down and try to get some of the twitches and panic out of her system.

She knows what she has—unlike most of the wizarding world, she’s not afraid of muggle psychology—but given the disdain the rest of the wizarding world has for anything even vaguely related to mental health issues, she has no way to get treatment. Hence the vacation.

“Okay,” the man says again, and she turns to see him levering himself upright in the bed, hand pressed to his side. “Why don’t we all calm down here. I have a feeling Jean-Claude wouldn’t be too happy if we blew up the basement, too.”

“ _I_ ’m not planning on attacking anyone,” Hermione says primly, though her wand is gripped tightly enough in her hand that her knuckles are starting to ache. She eases off on it, but only because a tight grip can inhibit precision casting in a combat situation. “I’ll just leave now, and not press charges, but only because I have no interest in dealing in the fallout from that.”

“They wouldn’t convict me even if you did,” Anita says.

Hermione gives her a smile that she knows is nasty, but right now she feels a little like when she had Rita Skeeter in that jar, looking down at her and knowing she could keep her there and there was nothing Skeeter could do about it. “If I said you attacked me, the entirety of the British wizarding world would go after you.”

Anita scoffs. “I doubt that.”

“I’m willing to test that, if you would like.”

“Nathaniel,” the man in the bed says, and he sounds somewhere between bewildered and alarmed, “can you smell that? When she—when she stopped the ardeur, she smelled like Jean-Claude. And now, again.”

Nathaniel frowns at him. “Anita?”

The man in the bed shakes his head. “Not Anita. _Her_.”

\--

Hermione finds an empty room to duck into while a half-dozen people move on from discussing a branch of magic theory that she has no basis for to discussing how long it’ll take before a vampire wakes up, where she pulls out her phone and calls Harry.

He picks up after one ring, which means that he’s stressed and fiddling with it because he stopped twirling his wand after almost burning an eyebrow off with a stray spark. He has a lot of power to bleed off. The Elder Wand is an unknown to all of them, still. She’s working on it.

“Hey,” he says, “how’s vacation going? You found a library yet?”

Hermione smiles at the sound of his voice. “There are no magical libraries in St. Louis.”

“Then what are you doing there?”

“Stumbling into the middle of a terrorist attack, it seems.”

His voice sharpening, Harry says, “The nightclub bombing. I heard about that. You were there?”

“Unfortunately. And it was a strip club.”

He laughs. “Maybe I won’t tell Ron about that part. But considering that it took you until today to call, I’m guessing you’re okay.”

“I’m fine.” She shoves a piece of hair out of her face, sighing in exasperation at it. “Things have gotten complicated, though.”

“Do you need me there?”

“I can take care of myself, Harry. But I do need your help from there, if you have time.”

He makes a rough noise. “Please. I’m so bored. I love Teddy, but there’s nothing to _do_.”

“You probably won’t find this too interesting, I don’t think, but I need you to talk to Fleur and find out if Occlumency can block Veela.”

The soldier tone snaps back into his voice, and he demands, “What’s going on?”

She feels her back straightening at that sound of voice, the one he used when he was teaching DA and forgot he was supposed to be nice, the one from when he forgot to be scared and was just in charge. There were reasons they followed him, and they weren’t just because he was the Boy Who Lived or the Chosen One or their friend.

“A woman here used what I originally thought was Legilimency on me, though it seems to have functioned in a manner closer to how Veela operate. I was able to block it through Occlumency, but if it will be a risk again I want to know as much as I can about it. The term they used is ‘ardeur’, indicating that the basis may be French, if that helps Fleur.”

“I’ll ask. You’re coming home soon, though, right?”

“Probably.” She sighs again. “How’s Ron?”

“He’s good. Helping George rebuild, still. I think he’ll probably end up staying with the shop.”

“That’s good.”

Harry hesitates then, in that strangled voice boys get when talking about emotions, says, “He misses you.”

“I know.”

“I miss you too,” he says more confidently. “We all do.”

“I know. I’ll go home eventually.” Someone steps into the doorway, and she looks up at them, then says, “I have to go. Let me know what Fleur says.”

“Tell me if you need help.”

Hermione smiles. “I will. Goodbye.” She hangs up, then looks at the woman standing in the doorway. “Yes?”

“Come with me.”

Hermione follows her back to a room where Nathaniel is sitting curled up on a couch, watching Anita pace back and forth. There are a few other people in the room, but all of the attention is focused on Anita.

Her head jerks up when Hermione walks in, and she stalks over, demanding, “Who are you?”

Hermione grits her teeth, then says, “A bystander who decided to help.”

“Not good enough. I called RPIT and got a strongly-worded suggestion to stop asking.”

“Which clearly you didn’t listen to.”

Anita jabs a finger in Hermione’s direction. “You show up right before a bombing, using magic more casually than I ever see. You did something I’d never thought possible, and you did it without batting an eye. Who the fuck are you?”

Hermione shoves her wand hand in her pocket so she doesn’t do something stupid like hex her. Maybe her temper is a bit short, too, after the war, though at least she has the self-control not to act on it. “My name is Hermione Granger. I’m a witch from Britain. There’s nothing else you need to know.”

“How about why the RPIT thinks a British witch should be untouchable.”

Feeling trapped, Hermione shoves her sleeves up, heading away from Anita. This is what she gets for trying to do good. She should have just said to hell with it and walked away instead of trying to save the damn world.

But she’s never been particularly good at walking away, and she knows it.

“What’s on your arm?”

Hermione jerks her head up to look at Nathaniel, who’s staring at the exposed skin on her arm; she tucks it against her side, but she knows it’s too late. So she takes a steadying breath and says, “A man wanted to commit genocide. I disagreed with him. If there’s nothing you need from me, I’m going to go.”

Before she can actually do that, the door opens, and the French man from the night before appears in the doorway. Most of the people in the room look surprised to see him, and she has a feeling he’s a vampire, and so should not be awake this early.

“Jean-Claude.”

“ _Ma petite_ , what has happened?” He looks at Hermione. “I had not expected to see you again.”

Hermione sighs. “I hadn’t expected to be here again.”

His brow arches, and then he looks at Anita, who says, “The ardeur rose, but she stopped it.”

“And,” Jason says from where he’s lounging on a couch, “she smelled like you while doing it.”

Jean-Claude’s eyes narrow, and he asks, “In the way that those of us of Belle Morte’s line may bear the same scent when using the power that we have inherited from her?”

Jason hesitates, making eye contact with Nathaniel, then says, “More in the way Stephen and Gregory smell like each other beneath the different animals.”

“I assure you,” Jean-Claude says, “Ms. Granger is not my sister.”

“I know,” Jason says then, more hesitantly, adds, “but if I didn’t know any better, I might think she was your descendant.”

“They look nothing alike,” Anita says sharply.

Jason makes a face, then says, “Once you get past the race thing, they kind of do. The shape of their eyes, their jawline.” Jason gives Anita an apologetic look. “I’ve spent a lot of time staring at Jean-Claude.”

Jean-Claude examines Hermione for a moment, and she fights the urge to draw her wand. Because most people who have looked at her that closely either want something from her or want to kill her. And all of this is insane anyway, but she needs to formulate a better explanation before arguing with them, or they won’t listen to her.

Abruptly, she wishes Harry were here, because he’s better at pulling lies out of nowhere and getting them out of situations. She gets too caught up in the details.

“I’m not related to you,” she says when nobody says anything in response, “and if this is your best attempt at stopping me from considering pressing charges for the use of offensive mind-magic against me, it is weak.”

“Pressing charges?” Jean-Claude asks.

Hermione shoves at her hair in agitation. “you all seem so determined to maintain your ignorance as to the illegality of offensive mind-magic, but it is in fact illegal, and if Ms. Blake had succeeded in forcing me to have sex with her, as the magic seems to have been attempting, it would have, in fact, been rape. Maybe you Americans have different views on offensive mind-magic, but I can assure you that the British Ministry of Magic won’t be so sanguine about it. And, as some of you appear to have determined, I am, for all my ills, highly regarded within the British wizarding community.”

“I see,” Jean-Claude says. “And you are determined to do such a thing?”

“No.” She’s spent far too much time testifying in front of the Wizengamot in the past few months, and if she brings this to the Ministry someone may actually crucify Anita Blake. But she also isn’t going to just let this go as though what happened a was a perfectly normal and acceptable incident. “But I should.”

He stares at her for a moment. “You believe that they will take your word over mine, as Master of the City, in regards to what happened with my own human servant?”

They must not know about pensieve memories, if they think it would be his word against hers. But instead, because she needs to make a point, she says, “I helped win them a war, not too long ago. Politically, right now, I’m one of the most powerful people in Britain.”

“You speak of the war against the Dark Lord. He tried to recruit many of our kind there, but we do not concern ourselves in your affairs.”

Hermione presses a hand to the scar underneath her sleeve, then says, “We, unfortunately, didn’t have that option. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to leave now. You are welcome to continue this farcical discussion, but I came only to see how he was doing, and so I have no more reason to be here.”

“Don’t go far,” Blake says sharply.

Hermione turns to look at her. “I will go as far as I want. I’m not the suspect of a crime. You may be able to intimidate people into doing what you want, Ms. Blake, but I just lived through a war. You don’t scare me.” And then she turns and walks out of the room, heading up the stairs and out of the club.

She’s tired of being treated like a child. At this age, she’s trapped between worlds—the wizarding world sees her as an adult, one of their saviors, able to do anything, withstand anything. Not requiring rest or respite, caring only about helping rebuild the world she just helped save. The muggle world sees her a child, no matter that she is a legal adult in it. She is parentless, alone, a woman, to be at equal turns shielded and disregarded. She spent her summers learning the muggle studies that Hogwarts did not teach, maths and sciences, but she isn’t in uni, so apparently her intelligence doesn’t exist.

The United States was supposed to be different.

Though, she supposes, everywhere is approximately the same, when you look deep enough. Even wizards aren’t as different from muggles as they’d like to think, at the heart of it. They both relish in their ignorance, and their views of strength—she’s a Gryffindor, she’s seen it, she knows what it looks like.

She’s not going to go home yet, not go to her empty family home or to Grimmauld Place with Harry or to the Burrow with Ron. She’s going to stay here, because if she has to deal with the Ministry or the  _Daily Prophet_  or anyone else she might decide that Minister of Magic really is what she wants to be, and  _take it_.

And then she looks up, and there is a man in front of her with a gun, and as she twists and raises her wand fire and then pain punch through her shoulder. Wand in hand, she shouts a curse that she can’t hear over the throbbing in her head.

Somewhere between one pulse of pain and the next, everything goes away.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Is this going somewhere? Who knows. Do I like where this is going? Who knows.


End file.
